Rick says he was a big fan of "Starsky & Hutch"
when he was a teenager, and of course one of his favorite parts of the show was the Gran Torino! In 2004, he was
at a point where he had been blessed financially and was able to start looking for a Torino to buy. He started
out looking for a limited production S&H unit, but wound up buying this 1975 Gran Torino from Gregg & Arlene
H. after seeing it here on this site. He says the car looks beautiful, and he picked up a couple of trophies at
car cruises right away the first year he owned it. But the real fun of owning the car, he says, is seeing the reactions
he gets from different people. "I've lost count of how many times I've heard someone yelling out 'Hey, Starsky!'
as I'm driving down the road!"

Rick says it was a pleasure to deal with Gregg &
Arlene H. At the time, there had been a lot of sales where someone had put a coat of red paint and a bad-looking
stripe on a Torino just to cash in on the recently popularity of the movie. Not the case with Gregg & Arlene,
he says. "It's obvious that this car was a labor of love, as it was meant to be Arlene's car until they found
a lower mileage one which they decided to keep for her. "As a matter of fact, when they shipped me the car,
Arlene said she felt like she was sending her daughter off on a pre-arranged marriage to a man she had never met!"
Gregg has said that the guy who did the painting "is an artist!"

Before selling the car to Rick, Gregg & Arlene
replaced the bench seat with buckets, added the trunk light, installed an automatic trunk release from a '76 Torino,
replaced the dome light with the deluxe one with the map lights, installed a factory clock, and put on deep dish
slotted mags (14 x 7 on the front and 15 x 8 ½ on the rear). Notice those are real vintage American Racing
slotted mags, not the ill-designed newer replicas. The tire sizes are 275/60/15 in the back and 215/70/14 on the
front. They also installed NOS grill and gas door ornaments, and even installed a heated rear window and an AM/FM
8-Track. I took these pictures at the S&H Torino Reunion at the Carlisle All-Ford Nationals in 2008.